Star Trek: Journeyman
by countruby
Summary: The USS Journeyman, captained by the newly-promoted Captain Alexander Jones, and Nova-class starship sent out to explore the reaches beyond the Milky Way. But on its maiden voyage, it becomes stuck and the impossible must be achieved to escape home.
1. Promotion

AN: Heck knows why I came up with this. Anyway, enjoy!

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"Commander Jones." Admiral Janeway's voice boomed from the other side of the grounds. The Commander jumped and stood to attention. The last time he had come into contact with Admiral Janeway he ended up insulting her and nearly being demoted. "At ease, Commander. I'm here this time with good news."

"Thank goodness. You nearly gave me a heart attack. What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"I am here as a representative of Starfleet Command. Do you remember the Nova-class starship we were designing together? The... USS Journeyman I believe?"

"Yes ma'am. The time when..."

"You accidentally insulted my ability as a starship captain and mentioned that... *ahem*, 'a weasel in a tutu could have navigated the quadrant faster.'"

Commander Jones chuckled nervously. "I think it may have been along those lines..." he replied, voice shaking slightly.

"Commander, as most of my old crew will tell you, my seriousness is not as thick a shield as most Starfleet Admiral's. You needn't worry."

"My apologies ma'am. I tend to get a little nervous around my superiors."

"Well, on the mission I have here for you, you won't need to worry about your superiors." She said, smiling, and she handed the Commander a PADD.

"Ma'am?"

Janeway took a small golden box from her pocket. "Commander Alexander John Jones, on behalf of Starfleet Command you are hereby promoted to the rank of Captain. You are presented with all the responsibilities and privileges that come with your given rank." She smiled and opened the box, in which contained the rank pip that showed Jones as a Starfleet Captain. His eyes stuck open in astonishment, the Admiral attached the pip to his collar. "Now, all that's left is to find you a weasel with a tutu." The comment caught him off guard, as his head was still spinning. In his seven years in Starfleet, he never once considered that he would ever be promoted to Captain. He was a scientist, often experimenting with unorthodox theories. He thought it a wonder that he survived as long as he did in Starfleet at all.  
"Are you sure you have the right man, ma'am?" Janeway chuckled. She knew he would be reluctant and scared at first.

"I'm absolutely sure that you're the right man. And you're command; the very USS Journeyman we designed together." A smile spread across the new Captain's face; he had designed the Journeyman to something he would be happy to serve in. He hand-drew the room designs for eight of the fourteen decks; designed an impressive EMH system using Voyager's as a base, and created an enhanced warp drive so powerful it could almost safely break the Warp 10 barrier. "That seems to make you fairly happy. Oh, and they've approved your uniform design exclusively for the Journeyman."

"Really? Wow, I really didn't expect that. I thought some of the other Admirals deemed the designs as 'impractical for starship use'."

"Well, we thought that due to your outstanding development and assistance on the Journeyman, it seemed a fitting reward. They did have to make some slight adjustments though, just to incorporate certain situations."

"You know, I don't think that even matters, I feel top of the quadrant right now." He smiled, a smile that stretched almost from ear to ear with glee. "Thank you, Admiral. I'll head home now, I need to collect my pet weasel. I need to... custom design the tutu to Starfleet specifications." They shared a laugh together, and left the grounds, both in very high hopes of the times to come.


	2. Meet the Crew, Part I

"... and this, Lieutenant, is your station. Main Engineering." The Captain smiled at his newest recruit. He had spent over two days sifting through teraquad upon teraquad of data on potential senior staff for the Journeyman. He still had to fill the positions of First Officer and the helmsman, but he was taking great delight in showing every new member of his crew the finer details of the ship.

"Ah, your famous warp core, capable of reaching speeds of-"  
"Warp Factor 9.99999999999999999, but for the sake of my own and the rest of the crew's sanity, we'll call it maximum warp factor." He gave a smug grin to the girl stood in front of him. He claimed to have chosen her on the finest intricacies of her intellect. The rest of the crew came to the conclusion that he in fact chose her because she had written a sixteen page essay entirely on his life and research. There was also another, more personal reason that much of the crew did not hasten to discuss, but when confronted about it they had to agree that he was right. She stood six feet tall, and had long, silky hair that was tied up neatly in a ponytail. She was one of the few officers that had not dismissed the idea of Captain Jones' redesigned uniform, which most Admirals had considered inappropriate, to say the least. Her name was Sasha Flowers, and her Starfleet report shone like a single star in the pitch-black night sky.  
"If there are any questions you may have, Lieutenant, please do not hesitate to ask."  
"Well, if you are permitting me to ask, can I just say, your ship has a distinct lack of medical staff. When I was shown Sickbay there were only two people in there, and one of them was a patient!"  
"Ah, well, that particular matter would be more easily displayed, rather than described. If you would like to see, I'd be more than happy to show you...?" he gestured towards the turbolift at the back of the room.  
"Why of course. Lead the way!" the Captain gave her a mockingly stern look, "... sir." He smiled and they headed for the turbolift.  
"Deck Five, Sickbay." The computer made the beeping noise to the affirmative and set the turbolift off.

Upon arrival at sickbay, the place was deserted. Ten beds, all laid out in an ordered manner, a biobed, a small office and a small storage cupboard. All completely devoid of life.  
"This is what I don't understand, Captain. I thought Starfleet would have at least issued you some medical staff, but this is just odd." She surveyed the room, checking to see if she could find at least some sign of humanoid life hiding somewhere amongst the hyposprays.  
"And this, my dear, is what makes this ship so unique among those of modern-day Starfleet. Computer, activate Medical Holographic Programs Alpha and Beta." With a click of the computer's circuits, photons burst from the holoemitters in the room and two figures appeared in front of the Captain and his Chief Engineer.  
They both stated, in unison; "Please state the nature of the medical situation."  
"There'll be no situation today, my friends, we haven't even taken off yet. Sasha, I would like you to meet MHP Alpha, our CMO, and MHP Beta, our nurse. I haven't had the pleasure of activating them until now, so they currently do not have names."  
"Greetings to you, ma'am" said the Beta program, prompting a stern look from the Alpha program.  
"We discussed this in the holodeck, Beta, you address the higher ranked officer first! How many times must we go over this?" The Alpha program stood about a foot taller than the Beta, and had a colder, harsher face. The Beta program was female, had long curly brown hair and a giant grin on her face, enough to crumble even the tritanium heart of a Romulan.  
"Did you program them to do this?" the puzzled Lieutenant asked the Captian.

"As much as I would like to say I did, no. Unfortunately I have no time to contact a proper holoengineer before the ship leaves, so we'll have to keep them that way for now. Stop that!" the holograms had gotten into an argument over how to address a patient properly, and the Alpha program had become so stubborn that he was at the holoemitter control panel, threatening to deactivate the Beta program. "Now listen to me... you are the medical staff aboard this ship. This means that you..." he paused and took a deep breath, and began to speak very slowly, "will be working together. You get that? Now, stop arguing like two-year-old organics or you'll traumatise more patients than you save."  
"Yes sir..." they said in unison.  
"Now, before I forget, I had these specially commissioned from Starfleet Command." The Captain reached into a storage cupboard and pulled out two small, disc-shaped devices. "These are prototype Mobile Holoprojectors. They're based off the one used by the Doctor from the USS Voyager. For now though, their technology is only limited to within one mile of the ship, but judging by your current lack of social skills I'm sure that that won't be a problem." He handed them to the holograms, who accepted them with as much joy as they could muster on their holographic faces. The Captain hadn't hired the most sophisticated of holoengineers to design their programs, and holoengineering was the single subject that the Captain could never seem to grasp.  
"Thank you sir, these are brilliant!" the Beta program smiled and wandered off to the Medical Office to check on the medicine stocks.  
"Thank you for this, sir; this was a most... intriguing visit. Hopefully I won't find myself here as often as I'd expected..." Lieutenant Flowers had been edging towards the door since the holograms had been activated, trying to get out of the room as quickly as possible.  
"I understand, Lieutenant. Next time I'll invest some more money in a more experienced holoengineer. Anyways, would you like to go to the Mess Hall? It's 1200 hours, and I'm starving!"


End file.
